1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of computing system file systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
When working with computing systems, it is common practice to use folders or directories to group together logically related files. For example, related emails may be grouped together in particular directories, or all .doc, .ppt, .pdf and .xls files belonging to a particular project may be stored in one directory. However, while such an approach may serve to facilitate organization, there are problems with this approach.
For example, if a particular file belongs to more than one project then you must either place a copy of the file in more than one directory, or use some type of link (e.g., a Unix® operating system type soft link) to make the file appear in both directories. In some cases, soft links may be preferable to copying given that changes made in one copy are generally not visible in other copies. Subsequent to the creation of the directories, a user may forget what the original criteria were for putting a given file in one directory versus another. Consequently, the effectiveness of using a directory to group related files becomes less and less useful over time.
Those familiar with the use of directories will appreciate that trying to determine what file goes into what directory may become fairly difficult. In addition, if you change your mind about the criteria on putting files in a directory, for example if the criteria becomes more or less stringent, then it may be necessary to manually reexamine every file on the file system to see if it matches the new criteria.
In addition to the above, the manner in which files in a directory can be viewed may be limited. For example, it may be relatively difficult to simply display all files which have been accessed in the last week or to show the last 10 created files. While some applications like Microsoft® Word have their own lists of previously accessed files, it is generally not possible to have a list of previously accessed files across all applications.
Accordingly, a flexible and effective method and mechanism for maintaining directories is desired.